BOWRON FRAUDS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1175, 10 July 1911, Page 5

BOWRON FRAUDS.

WAITING FOR A BOOM THAT NEVER CAME. JUDGE'S SUMMING UP. • By TeleeraDh—Press Assoniatlon-Oopyrlehl London, July 7. At the trial of Thomas Loouan Knight for conspiring with John Bowron, of Bowron Bros., to defraud Messrs. Booth Bros., skin merchants, of .£28,670, Mr. Travers Humphreys, prosecuting counsel, said the books showed that Knight was tho defendants' dock manager, without whoso signature the frauds were impossible. Hβ borrowed from tho firm .CB4GO, and his son borrowed <£2301. Nothing was repaid. Mr. Muir, in mitigation of tho sentenco on John Bowron, urged tho defendant's age, and the fact that he had not niado provision for his family out of the disaster. The turnover of tho business in London was .£300,000 per annum. For many years past the firm's capital had not exceeded .£35,000 or .£40,000. The Bowron family had lost .£131,000 in the matter. Sir F. A. Bosanquet, Common Sergeant of London, in passing sentence, 6aid the defendants had been guilty of gravo mercantile, frauds. It would have been far better had the firm gone into liquidation when in difficulties, instead of continuing in the speculative hope that trade would boom. There was no difference in tho cases of the accused, and but for his age and the fact of John Bowron not putting by largo sums, he vrould have pronounced a 6ent«nce of penal servitude.